LIV Golf Is Bankrupt. The Players May Be Its Biggest Liability

LIV Golf was supposed to prove that enough money could rewrite the economics of professional sport. Instead, five years after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) launched the breakaway league with billions of dollars behind it, LIV has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is being forced to reinvent itself. The immediate numbers are serious: LIV estimates liabilities of between $500 million and $1 billion, against assets of just $100 million to $500 million. But the most important figure in the filing is not the $45 million or so currently owed to players. It is the vastly larger pool of future contractual obligations and accumulated losses that has made the original model impossible to sustain.

The $45 Million Is Only the Beginning

The bankruptcy filing lists 14 current and former LIV players among its 30 largest unsecured creditors, with claims totalling just over $45 million. Jon Rahm is listed at $7.47 million, Bryson DeChambeau at $5.77 million, Dustin Johnson at $5.49 million and Cameron Smith at $4.84 million. Adrian Meronk and Tyrrell Hatton are also owed more than $3 million each. But these figures represent unpaid claims rather than the total value of the players’ contracts. Reporting indicates they relate to amounts owed and not paid for the third quarter of 2026.

That distinction transforms the story. Rahm, for example, is understood to have more than $100 million remaining on his existing LIV contract. His original move to LIV was reported at roughly $300 million or more. Other stars were recruited on similarly enormous terms. So the bankruptcy is not simply a case of LIV needing to find $45 million to pay golfers. It has to determine what happens to a contractual structure that was designed when Saudi capital appeared effectively unlimited. EBM examined the scale of that original Saudi golf investment earlier this year, when the numbers were already beginning to look commercially uncomfortable.

The deeper problem is the accumulated cost. More than $5 billion has been spent by the PIF on LIV since its creation, while the Financial Times has reported that the league accumulated roughly $5 billion of net operating losses over five years. Golf Digest has put the total cost of the experiment at potentially $5 billion to $8 billion. That is extraordinary even by the standards of sovereign wealth. EBM’s earlier Saudi golf bet argued that the PIF had not run out of money; rather, it had reached the point where continuing to fund a structurally loss-making league no longer fitted its investment priorities. The bankruptcy confirms the scale of that problem.

BC Partners Is Buying the Problem — and the Opportunity

The most intriguing part of LIV’s restructuring is the arrival of BC Partners Credit, the credit business of London-based private-equity firm BC Partners. LIV has signed a Restructuring Support Agreement with BC Partners and says the firm, together with other potential minority investors, is expected to provide exit financing and become the plan sponsor if the bankruptcy court approves the restructuring. The intended destination is a new LIV emerging in early 2027 under a player-first ownership model.

But BC Partners is not simply stepping in because it believes golf is suddenly a wonderful business. The private-equity firm’s interest is particularly revealing because LIV’s balance sheet contains something potentially valuable beyond the golf league itself: its enormous accumulated tax losses. The FT has reported that BC Partners has been examining LIV’s more than $5 billion in net operating losses as part of its investment rationale. If those losses can legally be preserved and utilised within a restructured business, they could become a significant asset.

That changes the character of the transaction. Saudi Arabia was effectively funding a sporting disruption. BC Partners is approaching LIV much more like a distressed corporate asset: strip away the uneconomic structure, preserve what has commercial value, reduce the cost base and create an investment case from what remains. It is a classic private-equity question — not whether LIV was successful in its original form, but whether something valuable can be extracted from the wreckage.

LIV 2.0 Will Be Smaller

The proposed new league is already being described as LIV 2.0, and it looks considerably less extravagant than the original. LIV says the restructured business will be built around a sustainable model, with players receiving equity and greater control over their commercial rights. Field sizes are expected to increase to 75 players, a cut is planned, qualifying opportunities would be introduced and the teams would increasingly be built around national identities. Prize purses are expected to be lower than LIV’s previous levels, although still above those on the DP World Tour.

That is not merely cost-cutting. It is an attempt to turn LIV from a capital-intensive rival to the PGA Tour into a commercially viable sports property. The distinction matters. The original league could afford to lose hundreds of millions because the PIF was willing to fund the losses. The new owners cannot assume that luxury.

It also puts the players in a completely different position. The original LIV proposition was simple: enormous guaranteed payments in exchange for joining the new league. The new proposition is closer to: accept lower guaranteed economics, receive equity and help build the value of the business yourself. EBM has examined this broader shift towards athlete ownership, but LIV represents an unusually dramatic test because its players are being asked to become owners while the company is simultaneously going through bankruptcy.

The Players May Hold the Key

There is another complication. BBC reporting indicates that players are not necessarily obliged to participate in LIV 2.0 simply because they previously signed multi-year agreements with LIV. The Chapter 11 process creates a framework for addressing existing contracts and gives players the opportunity to consider whether they want to participate in the restructured league.

That gives Rahm, DeChambeau, Johnson and the other stars considerable leverage. LIV needs recognizable players to maintain the value of its television, sponsorship and team propositions. But those same players now have to decide whether equity in a smaller, private-equity-backed league is more attractive than trying to return to the established tours.

And returning is not necessarily straightforward. The PGA Tour has imposed penalties and restrictions on players who defected to LIV, meaning the bankruptcy does not simply open the door for everyone to walk back through it. The players therefore sit in an unusual negotiating position: they are creditors of the old business, potential owners of the new one and, potentially, free agents in a market that still has rules governing where they can play.

From Sovereign Wealth to Private Equity

This is ultimately what makes the LIV bankruptcy more interesting than another sports failure. It marks a transition from sovereign-backed disruption to private-equity discipline.

The PIF could tolerate the enormous losses because LIV formed part of a much broader Saudi strategy involving global sport, tourism, entertainment and international influence. But EBM’s earlier analysis of Saudi sports investment showed the fundamental tension: strategic capital can change an industry very quickly, but eventually somebody has to ask what the asset is actually worth.

BC Partners is now asking exactly that question.

LIV Golf has already achieved its original disruptive objective. It changed player economics, forced the PGA Tour to respond and permanently altered professional golf’s commercial landscape. But the next chapter has nothing to do with whether Saudi Arabia can afford another billion-dollar cheque.

It is about whether a business that burned billions to buy the world’s best golfers can finally become worth owning.

That is the real LIV Golf test.